Minnesota State Moorhead had a reputation problem it hadn’t earned. Ambitious high schoolers in the region assumed the serious students went somewhere bigger, or somewhere private, and that Moorhead was where you landed if college was going to be a stretch. The people on campus knew better. Faculty had been mentoring standout students for years, pulling them into research and sending them to conferences, one professor at a time with nothing structural holding it together. An honors program existed on paper. It had never gotten the structure or the resources to be more than that.
So Moorhead decided to build a college instead. Weld Hall, the oldest building on campus, was headed for a $23 million renovation and would become a home base with a lounge and a theater. Certificates would stack across disciplines and every scholar would get up to $3,000 for professional development. The plan was solid, but the word "honors" was the problem. Students hear honors and picture longer papers. Some worried about getting labeled. Parents wanted to know what it added up to. And the university’s own tagline, Dragons Do More, said precisely the wrong thing to a 17-year-old already wondering whether they had time for any of this.
In a March strategy session, we asked the Honors College team to pick an image card that captured what they were building. Tom Reburn, Moorhead’s Dean of Admissions, chose an eye with a horizon reflected in it, and talked about attracting students who were already looking ahead.
"They don’t need us, but they will benefit from us and us from them."
– Tom Reburn, Dean of Admissions, Minnesota State Moorhead
That reset the project. The person responsible for filling the class had just described these students as partners. They arrive capable and know it. Moorhead’s job was to be the accelerator, and the work was an invitation.
We audited the language word by word. Support became invest. Kids became scholars. Rigorous became meaningful. Deficit framing came out entirely, since nobody in this audience needs to be told they’ll get confident eventually. We also identified that the current Moorhead tagline conflicted with the Honors College goals. Instead of designing around it, we recommended Honors-specific language so Dragons Do More could keep doing its job everywhere else on campus. Dragons Aspire is what it became.
Throughout our work together, we created a brand messaging framework with separate language for students and parents, because students and parents don’t often ask the same questions or lead with similar curiosities. We made the copy for the Honors College website. We captured and packaged a 90-second film built on direct-to-camera lines from College of Arts & Humanities Dean Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson, Honors College Director Brian Yost, and two current scholars, a 30-second social cut, and a b-roll package for the year ahead. The film premiered at Junior Day on April 24.
The Honors College opened this fall with 300 students. Two hundred are new Dragons, roughly a quarter of the incoming class. Moorhead’s total enrollment grew six percent to 4,622, and the university is on track to be the fastest-growing in the Minnesota State system. Dr. Jason Trainer, Vice President of Enrollment Management and Strategic Initiatives, said this share of the freshman class speaks to the caliber of students choosing Moorhead. Kristjansson-Nelson signs off the Honors College page herself, calling it an accelerator for students like you.
Weld Hall has 300 honors scholars in it now. Moorhead is recruiting the next class with the same invitation.
The best case stories start with a conversation. Tell us what you’re working on and we’ll tell you what it could look like.